People are asked to carry an increasingly large amount of personal data with them in the form of authentication, passwords, and personal knowledge. Typically these have been carried as paper documents and plastic cards, such as a driver's license or bank cards. Various forms of identification may also allow access to more information stored on central medical or other types of document servers. However, the additional information requires access to the server and the records are at risk of corruption, loss, or theft.
For authentication, people may remember passwords, use hard locks, or present biometrics such as a finger print to a reader for recognition. In some cases, voice recognition, has been used in addition to or instead of keyboard, mouse, and external dongle combinations. With more smart devices being introduced into daily life and more servers requiring unique authentication, the number of different authentication codes and formats increases. The use of the same weak passwords for multiple purposes also increases the risk of identity attacks and data theft.